


featherweight

by hyperphonic



Series: in bloom [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (even the crust punks!), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, and it is pure, and the whole music scene comes out to support them, ben 'how does one handle being in a relationship they actually care about' solo, first order releases their album, jess deserves a goddamn medal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-04-21 11:14:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14283693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyperphonic/pseuds/hyperphonic
Summary: “Thank you all so much for being the soil our roots grew in.” Poe pauses, looks out over the crowd of sweaty, smiling people and Rey swears he’s about to cry.“This album is for all of you.” Onstage, Ben nods, eyes focused on the back of his best friend’s head.“Without you, we never would have bloomed.” Rose’s cheek falls onto Rey’s shoulder and when Jess’s hand brushes against hers their fingers tangle, heedless of the August heat (she’s struck with the fact that everyone she loves is in this room right now, and Rey thinks her heart might burst).





	1. nail the casket

**Author's Note:**

> well, here we are. the beginning of another cigarette stained modern au. if you've not yet read _copacetic_ , i recommend you do so before starting this fic, for continuitie's sake if nothing else.
> 
> thank you all so much for the love you've continued to show _copacetic_ even after its conclusion; your attachment to the universe has played a huge role in pushing me to continue the story. this is your story as much as mine, i'm very lucky to get to share in the experience with you.
> 
> disclaimer: all i own is one (1) sick ass "casual sex friday" coffee mug.

Rey doesn’t know _why_ she always seems to wear a body suit on the most inopportune nights, but it’s a constant in her life second only to Rose’s smile and the smell of cigarettes in Jess’ hair. Usually it’s only irritating when she’s drunk and trying to pee, the delicate hook-and-eyes entirely too much hassle for fingers clumsy with one too many shots of jameo. Tonight, however, it’s not her fingers fumbling with the series of clasps and her eyes are sharply sober as she reaches a hand down to help Ben remove the thin fabric.

“Thanks, Sweetheart.” He murmurs into the junction of her neck and shoulder, hands fire at her hips where they push her back towards the grimy bathroom wall. Thin drywall vibrates with the bass of the set currently wailing onstage, and when Ben lifts her up to rest between his hips and the cheap plywood facing Rey imagines that she can feel every note as it resonates through her shoulder blades. With the hand not resting above her head Ben presses his palm flat against the muscles that flutter just above her dusting of stubble and slowly runs his hand up the length of her torso, gathering slinky black material around his wrist as he goes.

By the time calloused fingers kiss her collarbone Rey’s all but completely naked above him, shorts long forgotten beside her purse on the dirty bathroom floor. Ben’s breath comes in shallow huffs as her hips begin to roll, grinding herself against the erection that strains at the dark denim of his jeans, panting underscored by the wail of guitars from the stage. Dipping her fingers down to the space between them, Rey makes quick work of his button, and levers herself up so that Ben can lower his fly and shimmy just far enough out of his pants to line the head of his cock up against her slick folds.

“ _Ben.”_ She urges, hyper aware of every second that ticks by, time between now and the beginning of Ben’s set dwindling away at an alarming rate. Lips pulled to the side in an entirely too smug smirk, her boyfriend slides his free hand down to curl around her hip bone and slowly ( _slowly_ ) guides Rey down the length of his cock. Once he’s fully seated inside of her, Ben leans forward just enough to ghost a kiss across her lips, breathless even as he pulls his hips back until just his head is still sunk into her.

“Ready?” He asks, all gunpowder eyes and heavily weighted intent when he braces his arms on either side of her head. Rey nods as she brings sweaty hands up to tangle in his hair, and as Order 66 sets off on a wild riff, Ben begins to move.

When they’re both recovered enough to slide from the wall, Ben catches her around the waist and sets about showering kisses across every inch of exposed skin. Rey laughs, bright and warm in the cramped little bathroom, and bats him away so as to button her body suit back up. First Order’s lead guitarist fixes her with a heavy stare, a nearly tangible thing in such close quarters, and it’s with as much seriousness as a man actively tucking his flaccid dick back into his pants can have that Ben speaks.

“I love you.” Rey pauses, balancing on one foot with the other halfway through the leg of her shorts and a brilliant grin spreading across her face in the half light.

“I know.”

Ben’s answering smile knocks the breath from Rey’s lungs, leaving her blushing and laughing with her shorts still hardly halfway on when he pulls her into his arms for one last, enthusiastic kiss.

He lightly taps out a rhythm on her ass as they duck out of the bathroom together, blissfully conspicuous in the cramped hallway that leads from the bathrooms back into the main part of the venue. Rey reaches into her purse for a cig, and ben mirrors the action, one large hand dipping into his pocket for a smoke as he turns to head towards the emergency exit at the other end of the hall.

“Good luck!” Rey calls after him, voice just barely clearing the end of Order 66’s set; Ben shoots her a wink over one shoulder and offers a lazy salute with his already lit cigarette as he ducks out of the door.

Rose catches her with only a few steps left before clearing the long, dusty hallway and stepping back into the venue proper, sharp eyes taking careful stock of Rey’s mussed hair and slightly stilted walk. The shorter woman raises carefully groomed eyebrows as she draws to a stop in front of her friend.

“Heading outside?” She purrs with a knowing smirk, pausing just long enough to stare pointedly at the hickey blooming at the base of Rey’s throat before continuing her march to the bathroom. Rey grins, gestures noncommittally with her cig, and promptly hightails it out front.

It’s August, and though the sun has long since dipped beneath the jagged skyline leaving the air cool against the flush of Rey’s skin, the asphalt beneath her legs is still warm to the touch with residual heat as she lights up atop a curbstop outside the venue. Rey inhales slowly, savoring the cool and the brief moment of almost-silence that hangs in the air between sets as she absently flicks her lucky lighter (it coughs, nearly out, the last year and a half had asked a lot of it). Rose joins her three quarters of a cigarette later, dropping onto the curbstop beside her with a soft sound of contentment.

“The bathroom closest to the emergency exit smells _exactly_ like sex.” Rose teases, holds out her hand for a drag as Rey laughs. They split the last quarter of her 100 in silence, watching as street lights flicker on across the industrial zone spread out in front of them.

It’s Jess who finally breaks the silence, popping her head through the venue door to wave them in, smudged red lips set in a crooked smile (Rey makes a note to ask her who she’d been snogging later).

“C’mon assholes, they’re just about done setting up.” Both girls level a stare at her over their shoulders, eyes brighter than lit cigarettes in the rapidly descending twilight. Jess narrows her eyes and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand before flipping them the finger.

“Later.” Rose just rolls her eyes while Rey tosses the butt of her cig to the dusty pavement, and then the three of them are stomping down the long hallway back into the venue.

The venue is the most packed Rey’s ever seen it, wall to wall with what seems to be every member of the music scene in the greater Hosnian area. While they make their way past the merch table (manned once again by the smiling pink haired man from Rey’s first show at the venue, now sporting a bright little septum piercing) Jess points out that even the crust punks have emerged from the woodwork for First Order’s album release. Poe’s already set up behind the mic, shoulders loose and charisma clearly dialed all the way up as he gesticulates with the water bottle in his hand; clearly halfway through telling some impassioned story to Ben, who just shakes his head and turns back to setting pedals.

Turning back to the crowd in front of him, Poe takes one final sip of his water, sets the bottle down at the edge of his mic stand and raises one hand into the air as he lifts the mic to his mouth. As if cued the crowd falls totally still, all eyes on Poe while he hold his pose, tension building in the room like electricity in the air before a thunderstorm. Rey, Rose, and Jess, stand in the middle of the crowd, breath caught high in their throats as Ben lets the faintest hint of feedback bleed across the sound system. Dark eyes find hers among the crowd of people, and Ben’s lips (still swollen from the edge of her teeth set against them as he’d fucked her in the bathroom not even thirty minutes earlier) part into a nearly blinding smile. Speakers come alive with the rasp of Poe’s inhale, and Ben shoots her one final wink before striking his first chord.

It’s slow at first, Finn’s drums hitting every few seconds as Ben plucks a dirge-like tune into his amp underneath Poe’s nearly spoken words. The crowd leans in, barely breathing as the pace slowly begins to build. Poe’s hand is still in the air, and Rey almost doesn’t realize its dropping until it hits against his thigh and the stage _explodes_ into motion. Finn ducks his head into a furious series of beats as Ben and lays into his guitar, the wail of his Strat echoing sharply against the walls before vanishing under the chord structure of the other guitarist. Almost as soon as the boys hit their tempo a pit opens up, pushing the girls back a few paces as arms begin to fly wildly and the two-stepping begins in earnest.

Onstage, the boys all whip their heads in time to the beat, nearly-violent energy visible in every line of their bodies as they drive the pace forward. The song ends on a wail of Ben’s Strat and a guttural snarl from Poe as he whips the mic stand behind him, grinning into the uproar of support from the crowd. They’ve hardly let the last note fade into the graffitied walls before Ben begins a complicated run of tension chords and they’re tearing off again, audience hopelessly along for the ride as the crowd pulses in response to the music.  First Order carries on in much the same fashion, pounding out beats into the venue mercilessly, until the crowd is nearly frothing at the mouth, spitting out people from the pit with every other note. Ben kicks his lead foot back, hits a particularly impressive series of notes with a whip of his head, and leans into his mic along with the bassist to back up Poe as the three of them snarl atop Finn’s heavy beat.

Poe begins the final song on the very edge of the stage, toes just barely kissing the edge of the pit where it writhes beneath him, hooded eyes lowered to the concrete below as the guitarists set up chord progressions with an almost frightening precision. Ben breaks away from his partner to run a faster series of notes with Finn hot on his heels, tearing the band up to an even faster cadence and whipping the crowd into a frenzy. The set finishes with a last, plaintive note howled into the feedback and residual hum of Ben’s brass strings. Looking like he’d run five miles, Poe drops into a sitting position on the edge of the stage, voice hoarse and eyes suspiciously damp when he finally speaks softly into the mic.

“Thank you all so much for being the soil our roots grew in.” He pauses, looks out over the crowd of sweaty, smiling people and Rey swears he’s about to cry.

“This album is for all of you.” Onstage, Ben nods, eyes focused on the back of his best friend’s head.

“Without you, we never would have bloomed.” Rose’s cheek falls onto Rey’s shoulder and when Jess’s hand brushes against hers their fingers tangle, heedless of the August heat (she’s struck with the fact that everyone she loves is in this room right now, and Rey thinks her heart might burst). The interior of the little warehouse-turned-venue is nearly too hot to breathe in but no one seems to mind, breathless and happy together, applause nearly deafening when Poe sets down the mic and gives a tearful grin to the crowd.

Ben finds her in the crush of people smoking outside after the set, brushes sweaty hands against her hips as he leans in to press a kiss against her temple. He smells like sweat and cigarettes, warm and heady in her nose where she tucks it against his neck. Show goers mill around them, either wholly uninterested or politely ignoring the quiet moment unfolding among them; and whichever it is, Rey’s grateful for it when Ben presses his lips to the top of her head.

“I think the boys are gonna head out to point to celebrate.” Rey smiles and leans even further into his embrace, huffs a sigh against the damp cotton of Ben’s shirt when he winds his arms around her waist.

“Wanna go?” Rey can’t think of anything that sounds better than beers and a bonfire on the rocky beach, so she agrees with a bright grin.

“Rose and Jess already know?” Ben nods an affirmative into her hair before spinning her around, arms flexing as he lifts her slight weight off the ground.

“Yeah!” Setting her gently back onto the ground, Ben presses one last kiss to her forehead before tangling their fingers. Rey grins, squinting up at the man she loves through the haze of cigarette smoke and waning light as Ben begins to tug her towards his car, still parked against the adjacent building where they’d left it that afternoon before set up.

“Poe and Jess are heading on a booze run.” He notes, half an eye on his phone as he opens the passenger door for Rey.

“Want to share a sixer, Sweetheart?” Rey waits until he’s walked around the front of the car and ducked into the driver’s seat, camel already in hand to answer.

“That sounds great!” She snatches the lighter from him once he’s lit up, easing the sting with a brush of her lips against his pulse as Ben puts the car into first and pulls out of the lot. The point is about a twenty-minute drive from the venue, winding and warm with their windows down and the settling dark spilling into the cabin of the car. Ben doesn’t queue up any music, just lets the sound of the wind whipping through Rey’s unbound hair permeate the cabin, fingers tangled with hers atop the gearshift.  

In the time it takes them to pull up to the (admittedly seedy) parking lot above the beach and pick their way down sandy cliffs to the shore, Finn and Rose have already got the beginnings of what promises to be an impressive bonfire burning in a hand dug pit. Rey’s out of her sneakers and tearing barefooted across the sand to Rose’s side within seconds of spotting her, and before Ben has even closed half of the distance between him and the fire they’re both ankle deep in the shallows.

“While you were on your way over.” Rose begins, reaching out to hold both of Rey’s hands above the glassy water, reflection undisturbed by wind or tide, “Finn asked me to date him officially.” Rey shrieks, eyes wide and joyous as she tears her hands from Rose’s to fling tanned arms around her friend’s neck.

“You’re shitting me!” She gasps, just as Poe and Jess skid down the sandy cliffs, loaded down with alcohol and grins wider than the beach itself. Ben raises his eyes at the color in his bandmates cheeks, and the shorter man just hands him a beer in response before waving the two girls out of the water and up to their little campsite.

It’s nearly midnight when Ben pulls Rey against his side, shoulder blades pressed against a large piece of driftwood behind him and profile lit only by flames that lick towards the sky. The city glitters against the water in front of them, and if Rey squints past the smoke and beer curled deep in her stomach, she can almost distinguish the wharf where she and Jess have spent so many hours with cigarettes burning through their fingers.

Ben’s fingers dance up her spine, callouses from years of guitar catching on the sheer fabric of her bodysuit, and Rey feels a wave of goosebumps rush up her arms in response. This, Rey thinks, watching Finn wrap his jacket around Rose’s shoulders as she doses against him and Poe show Jess the _proper_ way to take a pickleback, must be heaven.

 


	2. sweet nothings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for your patience on this update, now that finals are over i anticipate getting back to our usual schedule of updates every two to three days! 
> 
> hope everyone's summer is off to a great start/don't forget to comment/please keep me company over on my tumblr ( _hyperphonic_ )

Two weeks after the album release show, and approximately six weeks into their “official” relationship, the twenty seventh of August dawns bright and warm; the kind of late summer morning that smells just a little like fall at the edges. City noise bleeds in through the open window, and Rey hardly has time to register the stimuli before it’s wholly eclipsed by the press of Ben’s lips against the base of her spine.

“Good morning.” His mouth closes over another vertebrae, this time a little higher up, and Rey muffles a happy sigh into her pillow. Ben continues to make his way up her body, pausing only when his lips hover just above her C5 and his nose brushes against the wispy hairs at the base of her skull. Beneath him Rey squirms, breathless with the unmistakable feeling of his erection pressed into the small of her back and the tension stretching out with every breath.

“Rey.” Her name feels like fire when he brushes it against her skin, and Rey wonders briefly if this is how she goes: happy and horny beneath Ben Solo. The man above her leans even closer, breath fanning out against her ear for a few humid moments before finally speaking again.

“My mom wants us to come over for dinner.”

Rey’s head shoots up from the pillows with enough force to send Ben reeling back when it connects with his shoulder, any remaining sexual tension long gone by the time she’s scrambled up into a sitting position.

“Your  _ mother  _ wants  _ what?”  _ Ben doesn’t answer right away, choosing instead to chew on his lip contemplatively, and it’s not until he brings a hand up to follow the topography of one breast that Rey realizes he’s been staring at her bare chest this whole time.

“ _ Ben,”  _ she hisses indignantly, fingers quick to snatch the sheets up and over her breasts as her boyfriend grins wolfishly.

“What?” One calloused hand tugs insistently at the cotton pooled around her waist.

“Have any plans tonight?”

(She doesn’t, and they both know it).

Ben’s sprawled across her lap in a reach for his phone before Rey can even begin to fabricate some excuse involving Jess, Rose and/or some imaginary social disaster, leaving her to watch with quiet horror as he sends off a text to what Rey assumes must be Leia. Resigned to her fate, Rey lets out a gusty sigh and doesn’t try to resist when Ben sets his phone down and turns the full of his attention onto one hipbone where it juts out from the mussed sheets. It’s the last week of August, and the wedding weather sun spills across her bed along with the buzz of street traffic below as Ben presses his lips against her pulse with the promise of something more.

Late afternoon finds them sipping on fresh coffee and sharing Rey’s tiny bathroom as they get ready to head out. Ben shaves with knife edge precision, hands maybe even more steady than Rey’s as she flicks her eyeliner out at the edges, one hip against the counter in order to get a better angle and entirely unaware of how her mouth hangs ever so slightly open in concentration. Beside her Ben hums along to the song blasting from his phone, some fast-paced pop punk number that Rey knows he’s shown her before in his car on the wharf. It’s still new, sharing her bathroom with him before events, a different (but no less sweet) flavor compared to the wild energy of her, Rose and Jess crammed in against the blue tile.

Today though, Rey especially feels the newness of this particular situation. She’s never been brought around to a boy’s house before, never had to go through the process of meeting a significant other’s nuclear family before. Not even had a family of her own to provide a schema to base expectations around. The closest she had was Rose and Jess, and though they’d singlehandedly given her the tools with which to navigate most aspects of life, this was one field where not even  _ they _ could help her. Heart in her throat Rey sets her eyeliner down in favor of dusting some shadow into the crease of her eye, hoping against all odds that Ben wouldn’t notice her sudden shortness of breath.

“Hey.” Ben’s voice cuts through the strident guitar like a hot knife through butter (no such luck, then), sending Rey’s hand skittering away from her eyelid in response.

“What’s on your mind, Sweetheart?”

Rey swallows thickly in response, caught between Ben’s stare in the mirror and her own sudden anxiety. A few tense seconds tick by where Rey desperately tries to put words to her misgivings, each fatalistic shot hitting the back of her skull like gunfire. After the seventh Mississippi Ben sets his razor down and moves to pull her against his chest, breath warm on her skin when he dips his head to press kisses across bare skin. The contact helps to ground Rey’s wildly spinning thoughts, and she focuses on the feeling of his mouth against her shoulder for three more Mississippis before finally speaking.

“I’m just-” Rey pauses to study their reflection in the mirror and cannot help the slow smile that spreads across her face at the sight of Ben running his nose along the long column of her throat. “A little nervous, I guess.”

(An understatement.)

Her boyfriend buries a grin into the junction between her neck and shoulder, and Rey thinks that maybe she’s met her match in this tall, dark idiot.

“Don’t be nervous.” The arms around her waist tighten almost imperceptibly before Ben continues.

“They’re going to love you.”

Ben drives them over to his parent’s house in the beat to shit five speed they’d shared their first kiss in. Rey loves the car far more than she knows she should, understands that it’s on its last legs and also probably haunted, but there’s something about the mix of fruitless air fresheners, cigarette smell and worn in upholstery that makes her heart melt. It’s well lived in and undeniably  _ Ben  _ in everything from the guitar strings in the front cupholder, to the battered stack of CDs shoved under the deck.

Once they’re clipping along in fourth gear Rey rolls her window down and lights one up, only letting her focus stray from the red clutched between her fingers like something holy to give Ben a smoky smile when his hand abandons the gearshift to curl against her thigh. The farther they get from the city proper, the more obvious autumn is in its calm advance on the greenery; Rey watches as the concrete gives way to slowly shifting plants and absently wonders if maybe she should feel more sad than this.

It’s been just over a year since she’d walked out of her ex’s house, a fact that swims a little closer to the forefront of her mind with every inhale of autumn air, and yet somehow Rey’s better than she’s ever been before. Her bed no longer feels like a coffin when she lays back in it at night, and she can’t actually remember with any amount of certainty the last time her lungs had felt like they were filled with gravesoil. It’s a a good thing, she’s sure, but it’s also deeply strange to know that just a few hundred days ago she’d been trudging along with her coffin quite literally on her back. Ben’s fingers tighten against her thigh just before snapping her completely from her reverie as they come to a stop at the next streetlight and he leans across the center console to press a sloppy kiss on her cheek.

“I’m so lucky to be yours.” The light switches to green and he pulls away just barely enough to put the car into first (Rey’s mouth goes dry at the way his forearm flexes with the action).

“If someone had told me this time last year that I’d be driving you to my parent’s place for dinner, I don’t think I would have believed them.” Ben shifts into second in the same moment that he casts a glance her way through the tangled lashes at the corner of his eyes.

“I’ve never been this happy before.” And when he puts the car into third with a little smile Rey isn’t entirely sure she was supposed to see, she knows he means it wholeheartedly. Without moving his eyes from the road Ben shifts into fourth, leans in to steal a drag of the (barely lit) red, and exhales out his cracked window before capturing her lips in a quick kiss.

Han and Leia’s house is an old brick number not too far from where Rose lives that smells like freshly mown grass and open windows. There’s foliage all around them: old growth trees that are already beginning to let loose golden leaves in the early evening sun, and white rimmed ivy that crawls up the sides of the houses and along some of the fences. Ben turns the music down as they pull into the driveway and makes a show of opening the door for Rey even though there’s no one out on the porch to bear witness. Her nerves spring back to life the moment she’s got both feet on the asphalt, but Ben doesn’t give her even a second to stew in it before his hands are on her hips.

“Ready?” He asks after thoroughly kissing her against the passenger side door.

“As I’ll ever be.” Rey sighs into the curls that curtain around the skin of his throat, and Ben grins goofily down at her for a few blinding seconds before dusting one last kiss across her forehead.

“You’re gonna do great.”

Rey understands two things upon meeting Leia Solo née Organa:

One: that Ben  _ must _ take after his father, because every word that falls from Leia’s mouth carries a certain kind of premeditated weight that her son entirely lacks.

And, two: that, judging from the slim tucked behind his mother’s ear, Ben’s smoking was as much a learned trait as his lazy humor.

“Ben!” Leia seems almost to fill the entire doorframe despite her diminutive size when she throws her arms open for her son.

“Hey mom.” The tiny woman tugs her son into what looks to be a bone crushing hug, completely indifferent of the way Ben has to bend at the waist in order to keep her feet on the ground, and only lets go once she’s good and sure he’s been properly squeezed. One bejeweled hand darts up to pat her son’s cheek, and then Rey finds herself on the receiving end of Leia’s laser focus (another thing Ben had obviously picked up from his mother).

“Well, you must be miss Jinn.” Rey swallows thickly and casts a desperate glance back at Ben, who only shoots her a weak smile and a thumbs up from his positon behind his mother in the foyer before retreating up the stairs into what Rey assumes must be the living room. Leia pretends not to notice her panicked glance and smiles, all cashmere and powdery perfume when she reaches up to pull Rey into an equally strong embrace. There’s a moment where Rey feels her shoulders draw up, and wants nothing more than to dash out the still open door behind her, but then Leia pulls away just enough to murmur,

“I’m very glad to meet you, dear.”

And just like flipping a switch, Rey feels the tension begin to drain (albeit slowly) from her muscles.

Dinner itself is like something out of one of the golden, incandescent dreams Rey had spun for herself as a child. Han and Leia banter across the table, wits sharper even than the edge of Han’s smirk when he catches Ben watching Rey’s mouth on her spoon, while Ben spends most of the meal sneaking bites to the family dog (a hulking brown beast named Chewie) when no one’s looking.

“So how did you two meet?” Leia asks once the plates have been cleared and the four of them sit around the table nursing drinks. Rey blinks down at the half finished glass of wine in front of her and realizes that she doesn’t really know how to answer that question. Technically they’d met at that first show, right? But certainly couples were supposed to have a better story than ‘ _ I saw your son onstage and decided I was at  _ least  _ going to fuck him before the year was out’. _

“She came to one of our shows last fall.” Ben answers without missing a beat, eyes a little brighter than usual in the warm half-light (though from whiskey or sentimentality, Rey couldn’t be sure). Han raises one brow, snifter half way to his lips as he studies his son across the table, clearly waiting on some form of elaboration.

“I saw her in the crowd and couldn’t get her out of my head.” Rey feels her cheeks flush, and darts one hand under the table to press her thumb affectionately into Ben’s knee. Leia sips her wine with misty eyes, and Ben’s hand finds hers beneath the table as Han gruffly asks after the state of the band van’s engine.

By the time Han and Leia see them out the door Rey can’t even remember why she’d been so nervous in the first place, anxiety long forgotten between the wine in her stomach and the press of Leia’s lips against her check when they’d said goodbye. Ben, for his part, seems every inch the cat who’d got the cream as they walk hand in hand down the cracked asphalt back towards his car. The night air is still, silent except for their mingled breaths and the low buzz of cicadas all around them when Ben opens the passenger side door for her with a breathtakingly soft smile. As soon as his own door is closed behind him, Ben tugs her nearly into his lap and sets about showering kisses all over her face.

“You’re incredible,” he sighs against her lips, breath hotter than any stage light in the cool night air. Rey brings one hand up to cup his cheek and Ben eagerly leans into the touch, eyes burning like lit cigarettes when he opens them to study her.

“I love you.” Rey presses a kiss against the bridge of his nose before settling back into her seat as he depresses the clutch and starts the car.

“I know.”

  
  



	3. black sheep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember when i said we were getting back on a regular posting schedule???? *sips from casual sex friday mug*.
> 
> also, the title of the google doc i sent this to my beta on was "softly, into the mic: i'm sorry". so have fun with that, i guess.
> 
> as always, i love you all so much, and am profoundly humbled by the love and support you pour out for this story. thank you so, so much (slash also please keep it coming because BOY does it help me write faster).

Cantina shows are, without fail, both the rowdiest and the most crowded in town. There’s something about the skeezy little dive bar that incites crowds to madness, whipping pits unlike any other Rey’s ever seen before into existence atop the bare concrete floor. There’s always at least one fight, someone always spills a drink on her, and she always comes away with dirt and glitter caked into the toes of her boots. She’s sure tonight will be no different, and so it’s with no small amount of resignation that Rey laces into her sturdiest pair of combat boots before heading out the door with Rose and Jess in a whirlwind of stale cigarette smoke and Rose’s signature perfume.

It’s Friday in the city, just dark enough that the streetlights have started to flicker on around them like the few breathless seconds before the first line of a play. The streets are alive with weekend traffic as they make the familiar trek from Rey’s apartment to the Cantina, and Rey feels distinctly like she’s waiting in the wings for some grand entrance.

“I still don’t know why you didn’t invite Ash.” Rose needles Jess midway across the intersection at 6th and G street. The taller of the two rolls her eyes and makes a profane hand gesture that causes a passing car to honk in response and Rey to purse her lips in order to keep from laughing.

“Because I don’t want our first date to be at the _fucking_ Cantina.” Rey and Rose exchange a look, clearly not sold on the excuse, and a decidedly tense silence falls over the group. Ash, from what Rey had gathered over the course of a few shifts spent watching her flirt with Jess, was a sweet girl; albeit a little more on the straight and narrow than Jess’s flings usually were (pun absolutely intended). Deny it as her friend might, Rey suspected the real reason she hadn’t brought her bright eyed almost-girlfriend along was because of the inherently wild nature of Cantina shows. Which was fair, Rey can’t help but admit as they round the final corner and the smell of the Cantina hits them full force.

By the time the three women slip into the queue already spilling out of the Cantina and onto the street, what tension had settled between them was already fading, only to dissipate entirely the second Rose spots their favorite bouncer (a hulking man named Fett who’d gone to high school with Ben).

“Hey there ladies.” He grins over the top of an out of state ID before handing it back to its owner, laugh lost under their responding chorus of hellos _._ The rest of the wait was spent lost in idle conversation, ranging everywhere from Jess’s (disastrous) attempt to quit smoking to the way Finn had started to say _I love you_ in the middle of sex the other night.

“Phasma opens, right?” Rose inquires as she scrolls through her social media, acrylic nails tapping out a staccato against her phone’s screen. Rey nods her affirmative, eyes glued to her text string with Ben,

_Good Luck!_

Her phone gives a cheery ping when the text goes through, a process that saw them almost all the way to the doors courtesy of the shitty Cantina wifi.

_Thanks._

Ben’s reply was short, enough so to send Rey’s eyes rolling as she imagines him texting while loading the band van. His style of communication had been shifting as of late, growing more and more succinct with every First Order rehearsal. Rey’s sure it’s just a result of a busy work schedule and the frequency with which they were playing between now and Halloween. That had to be it, after all, nothing else in their relationship had shifted enough so as to warrant this response. Or at least that’s what she tells herself each night he only brings his heartbeat into her bed, leaving her to contemplate when exactly the sheets that tangle between their feet had started to feel like casket lining.

Almost before they know it, the trio is passing Fett again, flashing IDs and bright smiles as he mock bows them through the door and into the already damp heat of the bar.  Rey does her best to focus on the exhilaration that always comes with crowds of people like this, the thrill of eyes on her, and not the anxiety that hums in the back of her mind, unbased but insidious nonetheless.

Always intuitive, it’s Jess who wraps a warm hand around Rey’s elbow and tugs her towards the bar. Rose follows suit, and it’s with their backs to the stage, and Jess already working her magic on the poor bartender (the same one from last summer, Rey notes dully somewhere in the back of her head) that Phasma joins them. In another world, Phasma would probably have been an amazon, or maybe a Valkyrie; what with the way she towers over the rest of the Cantina’s patrons, all blonde hair and sharp eyes.

Rey likes the vocalist a lot, actually, enjoys the way she speaks with the same kind of impersonal bluntness that Rey often does, loves how she’s shouldered her way into a male dominated scene as effortlessly as breathing. What Rey _doesn’t_ like though, is the way Phasma currently watches her, tattooed elbows set staunchly on the bartop beside her. There’s something in the taller woman’s stare, something sharp and sad, like May nights on the wharf when the rain drums too hard on the roof of the car to speak. Even the smell of alcohol and cigarette smoke isn’t enough to keep Rey grounded against the memories of city lights not quite penetrating thick spring fog that swim behind her eyes.

“First Order sure is taking off, huh?” Phasma asks, red lips poised at the rim of her shot glass (whiskey, no chaser in sight). There’s the all too familiar sound of Hux warming up, and the blonde knocks her shot back before blinking smoky eyes down at Rey almost sympathetically.

“Uh.” Rey leans forward to accept her drink from Derek, and ignores his attempt at a smile in favor of turning back to Phasma. “Yeah, I guess they are?” The distinct sound of a hot-rodded jazzmaster wails across the crowded bar again, and Phasma takes it as her cue to step away from the sticky bartop with a lazy wave of one gloved hand.

“What the hell was that all about?” Rose leans across Jess to ask, compact and lipgloss in hand as Derek mixes her drink with entirely too much gusto. Still trying to steady the world beneath her scuffed leather boots, Rey only shrugs one bare shoulder and takes what’s probably entirely too long a sip from her drink. Derek hands Rose her drink, sugar rim scattering across the already filthy bartop and leans in to murmur something in Jess’s ear before sliding a shot of tequila her way through the granulated sugar. Trying (and failing) to ignore the rising discomfort in her chest, Rey curls her drink against her chest and turns around to scan the crowd for any sign of Ben.

There’s none, naturally.

Part of the reason Phasma had taken the music scene so by storm laid solely in their absolute knack for performance. Where bands like First Order, Order 66, or the pop punk side project Poe had taken on but not yet named merely took the stage and then stayed there for the duration of their set, Phasma _moved_. Rey had never thought to ask the statuesque blonde what her history pre Phasma was, but she suspected it laid in theatre, or at least some kind of training in the arts. There was no other explanation for the show the five piece band put on, Rey mused to herself as she leaned against the bartop, watching with a grin as the set began.

Phasma herself was hidden in an alcove behind the stage, used by most bands for storing guitar cases and unused pedals, as a low feedback filtered out from her bassist’s amp. As the crowd settled down, her drummer rattled his high hat, and the guitarist began a series of chords that drove the tension in the room higher and higher until with a clever change of the lights and a sudden absence of music, Phasma stepped out to take center stage, and the song began in earnest.

The beat of the opening song was driving, rooted in hardcore and brilliantly contrasted by the lightness of Phasma’s vocals and the decidedly feminine way with which she worked the stage. Finishing her drink with a sigh and an appreciative smile as the blonde on stage sinks low against the mic stand, Rey turns to order another IPA in the same second that Ben ducks beneath the low door, smirking at something Fett had said.  It feels like December all over again, Rey thinks in an almost panic as she slides her empty pint across the bar and slips into the crowd. She isn’t one hundred percent sure what drives her to flee from her own boyfriend, only that her fingers have suddenly gone numb and the bathroom sounds like a much safer place than the bar and all of its frenetic energy.

The Cantina’s bathroom is a bit of a joke among Rey, Jess, and Rose. It’s completely garish, all hot pink walls and inexplicably animal print ceiling tile. The décor is completely at odds with the muted colors of the rest of the bar, and Rey cannot help but wonder (even as she leans against the wall adjacent to the door and stares at the lack of texts from Ben on her phone) what the men’s restroom looks like.

“Hey.” Rey looks up from her lock screen (a silly photo of her and Ben from a house show earlier in the summer, sweaty and smiling with their arms around one another) to see Jess leaning against the countertop, arms folded over her chest. The shorter girl gives a sympathetic smile and rattles a pack of reds in Rey’s direction.

“Care to catch some fresh air with me?”

Usually, slipping out of the crowd and into the relative calm of the smoking area behind the Cantina was a welcome reprieve for Rey. But tonight, with her heart so strung out and wires wrapped around her head, Rey can only think back to the bite of February air and Ben’s whispered apology into her stomach. Jess snaps her out of the moment with a cig shoved into her hand and a stern look underscored by the muffled wail of Phasma’s guitarist.

“What’s going on?” She demands, blunt as ever.

And Rey, between drags of her cigarette and pauses to let the band onstage hit their crescendos, tells Jess all about the shift in Ben’s communication style, the sudden sense of distance that had sprung up between them over the last two weeks, how her fingers had started to feel like ice against the filter of her cigarette again. Jess, for her part, listens with narrowed eyes and an expression so sour Rey almost snaps a photo for Rose.

“Interesting.” Is all her friend says, lips lost in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Rey nods, rests her chin in the hand not holding her cig, and wishes she had another drink as the distinct opening chords of Order 66’s set bleed through the thin bar walls. Jess takes another drag, and opens her mouth as if to say something, but before she can get whatever (probably scathing) remark she had in mind out, the door swings open with a wave of humid air and tension chords, and none other than Benjamin Solo himself steps out into the cold, mid October air.

“Rey.” Is all he says, eyes brighter than any stage light as he closes the distance between them. Jess raises both eyebrows, stubs her cig out on the wall next to her, and slips back into the bar on nearly silent feet. Swallowing thickly, Rey watches that same Feburary night play out in front of her as Ben comes to stand between her knees and tugs her into the folds of his old denim jacket.

“How come you vanished as soon as I walked in?” He rumbles into her hair, the relaxed tone of his voice belied by the way his shoulders feel like stone above her. Weighing her options, Rey turns her nose to hide its cold tip between his chest and the lining of his jacket, and stubs her cigarette out to buy some time before finally answering.

“I just had to pee.” She didn’t want to create a rift between them if there wasn’t actually one there, and Rey still hadn’t ruled out the possibility that she was just letting her anxiety get the better of her and _completely_ misreading the situation. Ben doesn’t answer for a long time, instead stroking her hair and nodding his head along to the beat of Order 66’s song contemplatively.

“I have to drive the band back to Finn’s after the set,” Ben murmurs as his hand migrates to tilt her chin up until Rey’s blinking past the flickering fluorescent lights to study sable eyes. “But I’d love to stay with you tonight, if that’s alright.”

Rey smiles (an action that just barely reaches her eyes), and leans upwards to press a kiss against his lips.

“I’d love that.”

Ben steps into her room well past bar break, exhausted and sweaty where he stands at the foot of her bed. From her perch at the head, knees pulled up to her chest and hair tumbling loosely around freckled shoulders, Rey watches as he sheds his jacket, followed by his shirt, and soon his favorite pair of torn jeans to crawl up the mattress towards her.

“I missed you today.” He presses into the soft skin of her throat as Rey threads her fingers through his hair, body coming alive under his touch. Ben’s lips trace the line of her carotid down ( _down down down_ ) until he’s sucking a bruise into her pulse point, and Rey cannot remember why she’d been so anxious in the first place. With a happy sigh on her lips when he dusts a kiss against her chin, Rey lets Ben spread her out across the duvet, eyes fluttering closed when he tugs the loose fabric of her sleep shorts down to her ankles. Breath fanning out across the taught skin between her hipbones, Ben licks his lips once before whispering.

“May I, Sweetheart?”

Afterwards, when they lay beneath her sheets; sweaty and tangled to the point that Rey doesn’t quite know where she ends and Ben begins, she feels her fingers begin to prickle again. It’s a far cry from the bitter cold that had set up beneath her nailbeds last winter, but Rey’s nothing if not observant, and there’s no mistaking the numbness that creeps in with every passing second. The sound of light October rain begins to drum it’s lonesome beat against her roof, mingling with the decreasing rhythm of Ben’s breath as he falls asleep, head pillowed against her chest.

Rey begins to worry that she smells grave soil once again.

 


	4. ignorance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **the working title for this absolute disaster was:** boys suck at communication, thanks for coming to my TED Talk
> 
>  **in my defense:** i'm telling you now to pour a drink, maybe two. this chapter pairs well w/ shitty beer and a pack of reds.

The week before Halloween is exactly as busy as Rey had expected it to be. First Order is stacked back to back with shows and rehearsals all week, culminating in a party on Friday to celebrate Order 66 heading down to record their first album. Friday itself dawns clear, though a formidable front hangs over the ocean, threatening to roll in over the town at any second. Rose, as per usually, offers to host the party; and she, Jess and Rey spend the better part of the day preparing her house for debauchery. It’s nice to spend a day with the girls, opting out of the show to clean and decorate (and stash the few truly fragile aspects of Rose’s décor in her bedroom for the night).

It’s impossible, between the smell of decomposing leaves and the sharp air characteristic of October for Rey to not reflect on the last fall she’d spent in her best friend’s house. This year though, there’s no Ben crying in the kitchen, no fog curling at the edges of her vision as she comforts a man she barely knows. Instead, Rey muses as she stares at her notably empty lockscreen, there’s just the tension she’d felt at the last Cantina show, stashed somewhere deep beside her lungs. Any doubts are pushed away by nine pm, when Jess hands her a red solo cup filled with light beer, and prompts her and Rose into a toast.

“To an October without tears.” Their laughter fills the immaculately cleaned house like summer sun, and for a moment, Rey completely forgets any lingering doubts.

By the time partygoers begin to file in, the three of them are respectably buzzed, piled on Rose’s couch as they watch vine compilations on the cracked screen of Jess’s phone. First to arrive is Order 66’s lead vocalist, a sandy looking man that Rey has always thought to be a bit cute (though his named has _never_ managed to stay in her head for very long). Rose greets him with a wave, and Rey misses him giving her his name when Jess leans in to whisper in her ear: 

“I haven’t told Rose yet, but I’ve invited Ash.”

 _That_ sends Rey’s brows straight into her hairline, and the smile the two of them share is a genuine one.

It only takes about twenty minutes for the house to go from reasonably empty of fucking packed, to the point that Rey can hardly step outside for a smoke with Jess without bumping shoulders with every crust punk in the music community (she doesn’t even know where they _came from,_ last she’d checked Order 66 was a far cry from a crust punk band). It’s nice though, a good distraction from the way Ben had only nodded at her from across the room when he’d entered, Finn on one shoulder as he’d given the lead guitarist of Order 66 a slap on the back. If Jess notices anything wrong, she doesn’t mention it, and Rey reciprocates the gesture when Ash flounces in dressed in a pink slip of a dress that looks horribly out of place among the leather and dark denim crushed around them.

Ash is a good fit for Jess, Rey decides halfway through her 100. The blonde is all soft smiles and rosy lips where Jess is hard lines; the juxtaposition calls a smile to Rey’s face even as she watches Ben knock a shot back through the foggy kitchen window. Bidding goodbye to the happy couple, Rey stubs her cig out and tucks it behind her ear before ducking back into the sweltering house and following the broad line of Ben’s shoulders through the throng and into the garage. Order 66 is loading their ready to ship equipment into the back of First Order’s ailing band van, the bustle of activity filling the garage with a warm kind of anticipation. The dusty concrete is cool against Rey’s bare feet, and when she tugs Ben around to face her by the edge of his sleeve, his stare is almost as chill.

“Hey.” She starts, fighting back a wince as his smile barely reaches sable eyes.

“Hi.” Ben tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear, and when Rey rises up on her toes to kiss him he tastes like beer and the lingering smoke of a menthol. He blinks when they part, and though Rey can’t quite place the look in his eyes, she shivers at the way it feels exactly like January.

“How was the set?” Her boyfriend only shrugs, leather creaking its protest at the movement (he needed to oil the jacket desperately).

“Alright.”

Bala Tik, First Order’s bassist, joint firmly pressed between his lips waves Ben over to help lift the drumkit up, and Rey feels suddenly like she might cry. There is, naturally, a brightly colored bottle of ice tucked away in the van, and Bala takes a knee among the raucous laughter of his bandmates to chug it. Rey takes one last look at the happy scene in front of her, and exits the garage, fingers numb as they curl around the cigarette behind her ear to tug it free.

Two in the morning rolls around with a soft smattering of rain and joyous goodbyes as the mass of inebriated partygoers bid Order 66 goodbye, fearlessly piloted into the unknown by Ben, Poe and Finn. Rey stands between Rose and Jess, and tries not to wonder why she feels like she’s saying goodbye to the boys too. Rose’s fingers tangle in her own, and Rey leans her head against Jess’s shoulder, swallowing thickly as the tail lights of First Order’s van disappear around the corner and into the steadily crescendoing rain.

The party dissipates rapidly after that, and by two forty five, Rose and Rey are pulling their hoods up to begin the arduous process of picking up stray cigarette butts and red solo cups from the deck out back while Jess tends to a happily asleep Ash and the mess that is Rose’s living room. Rey comes close to voicing the anxiety building in her chest while Rose opens a fresh trash bag, nose pink with the cold, but decides against it after evaluating the happy twinkle in her friend’s eyes. They finish in amicable silence about five minutes later, and Rey’s glad for the heat of Rose’s little house when they duck out of the rain and into the yet uncleaned kitchen.

Jess joins them a few seconds later, having seen Ash safely into an uber home, and the three of them share an exasperated glance at Bala, only half conscious on the couch before Jess excuses herself to begin working on the kitchen. Ice on his breath, and an empty bottle clutched to his chest, the bassist beckons the two girls closer with a wry smirk.

“Hey.” Rose and Rey lean in, hands sticky with old beer and arms loaded with discarded cups gathered from their trek through the kitchen.

“What’s up, Bala?” Rey perches on the edge of the coffee table and begins to stack her cups absently, ready for bed and for the bassist to say his piece so they can keep cleaning. Face pressed into one of the many pillows that take up the corners of Rose’s couch, the young man inhales slowly before rolling over to better face the two women peering at him.

“I’m just really glad that Ben and Finn have you two,” he squints at the two of them blearily from the velour upholstery. “Moving a band is tough on everyone.”

Rey feels her heart crash to a stop in her chest.

“Moving?” Rose asks, voice weaker than the faint smell of pot still filtering in from outdoors. There’s a beat of silence where Bala inhales slowly, and Rey feels her heart begin to beat again, pumping fire through her veins as he begins to speak again.

Rey and rose sit in her kitchen surrounded by red solo cups (Rey scoffs at the name and kicks one out of spite) and three am silence. When Jess finishes in the kitchen, the three of them pile into Rey’s car and drive out to the wharf. Huddled together in the backseat, the girls smoke and seethe, eyes ashier than the cigarettes in their fingers as they watch the sun rise in near silence.

“You’re leaving.” Rey drops the statement into the tense air that’s settled into the little kitchenette of his apartment later that morning. Her breath still tastes like reds and wharf air, and the reminder of how she’d spent her night keeps the anger burning low in her stomach alive as her boyfriend’s eyes widen. Ben doesn’t speak for a handful of seconds that feel like glass against Rey’s skin, and when he finally _does_ speak, she can’t help the scoff that breaks free from her throat.

“Yeah. I guess I am.”

“Why?” Ben chews on his lower lip and twitches his right hand towards the pack in his pocket.

“We got signed to Sith records down in Portland.” His words fall like gunshots against the old wood paneling of the kitchenette, and Rey wishes she could set things on fire with the power of her mind alone.

“And you didn’t tell me because why?”

“I wasn’t sure we were actually going to accept the offer until yesterday.” He mumbles, clearly as upset with himself as she was. “I didn’t want to stress you out if we weren’t actually going to see it through.”

Rey white knuckles the edge of the counter behind her and studies the man she loves as he stares at the toes of his skate shoes in shame.

“You do understand that’s the most dumbass excuse I have ever heard in my entire fucking life?” She finally asks, voice more biting than any Janurary wind when it leaves her mouth. To his credit, Ben looks properly ashamed as he nods, dark hair curtaining around his face with the motion.

“I can’t believe this Ben.” Rey wishes there was at least one light turned on to counteract the watery grey light that filters in through the closed windows to wash out the scene in front of her. “I would have gone with you.” If he’d just _communicated_ with her it wouldn’t have been a problem at all to pick up and go, her job at the café wasn’t one she was married to, and it wasn’t exactly like she had an inordinate amount of possessions crammed into her little loft. Rey was no stranger to picking up and leaving.

“You still _can_.” Ben tries, sable eyes hopeful as he brings his gaze up to hers. “Come with me, I mean.”

For half of a second Rey almost considers, dangerously close to tears as her maybe-boyfriend extends his hand towards her.

“No, Ben.” Rey finally releases the counter to grab her keys, and gives a short shake of her head before pressing past him to head to the door.

“I can’t.”

He doesn’t try to stop her as she goes, and for that Rey is thankful as she exits the foyer of his apartment and breaks into tears right there on the side of third avenue. The same stretch of road he’d kissed her on, lips triumphant and wild as he’d murmured he loved her. Rey lets out a rattling sob, and begins the walk back to her flat, shoulders drawn up nearly to her ears against the drizzling October rain that starts as she rounds the corner onto F street.

The whole walk back to her home is one of broken memories and a lingering gratefulness towards the weather for so perfectly mirroring her emotional state. It seems like every street corner holds some unbidden memory of Ben. Laughter with him, Finn and Rose as they waited in line outside of the little pub beside the Performing Arts Center, the curl of his fingers around her own as she passes the Cantina, his hands on her hips as he’d pressed her into the shitty brickwork of her building’s facing. By the time she stands outside her door, Rey’s crying freely, pulled in on herself as she shoulders her door open and comes face to face with Rose sitting with her back against the oven.

“Oh Rose.” The smaller woman is the picture of heartbreak too, cheeks flushed and wet as she wipes her eyes halfheartedly.

“I let myself in using the spare key, I’m sorry.” Her voice breaks a little at the end, and Rey’s on the floor beside her in a heartbeat, arms wrapped around her shoulders as they both shake.

“Don’t apologize.” Her friend gives a wet sniff and a nod, hands coming up to curl into the back of Rey’s denim jacket.

“Finn and I broke up.” It’s more of a whisper than anything else, and all Rey can do in response is hold her even tighter, a fresh wave of tears hitting the back of her eyes as she nods.

“I think Ben and I did too.”

She isn’t sure how long the two of them spend on her unswept linoleum floor, only that when Jess whirls through the door, she has two packs in one hand and her car keys in the other.

“Let’s go.” A command, clearly, and one that Rey is all too happy to obey (there are too many memories of Ben packed away within the walls of her home). The walk to Jess’s car is cold, the rain still pelting down in a frigid curtain around them as they cross the street in a pack. Driving to the wharf feels like it takes a million years; Rey counts the streetlights they pass reflected in growing puddles to keep herself from spinning out any further, Rose just flicks the lucky lighter absently. When they pull up to their usual spot, just a scant twelve hours after they’d left it the morning before, Jess rolls down all the windows to let the sharp fall air in and hands both her passengers a cigarette.

“So they’re really leaving.” Rey and Rose nod. “And they _really_ didn’t tell either of you.” Another chorus of tearful confirmations.

“Fucking _asshats._ ” Is all she says in response before lighting up.

About halfway through the pack the rain begins to pick up, and Rey feels her sadness melting away in favor of the fire she’d felt that afternoon in Ben’s apartment. Her fingers aren’t numb like they were last November, and she doesn’t feel like she’s become completely unmoored. Instead, a hard kind of calm seeps into her bones along with the fog that rolls in of the ocean, steeling her resolve as she opens her phone to three missed calls and a voicemail from Ben that she ignores in favor of pressing a kiss against Rose’s shoulder.

“We’re gonna be okay.” She says, maybe more to herself than Rose, a sentiment echoed by Jess with a flick of her cigarette out the window.

They were going to be fine, Rey just didn’t quite know how yet.


	5. solo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **the working title for this monster was:** ben, into the mic: i ain't ever gonna stop loving you, biiiiIIIITCH
> 
>  **also:** it's by no means mandatory, but i reference both chapters four and eight of _[wishful thinking](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14007957/chapters/32257938)_ over the course of this update. If you want to add a little depth to the universe, i suggest you give em a quick peek before you sit down with this chapter.
> 
>  **also also:** about a billion years ago, when _copacetic_ was still in progress, artielu asked for ben writing a song for rey, and well uh..... i'm sorry.

Rey realizes her relationship with Ben has been built on lies from the very beginning one bitterly cold, but deceptively sunny November morning as she drives to work. The route from her apartment to the café is a familiar one, right down to the exact locations of the cops who idle, waiting for anxious drivers to exceed the construction zone mandated speed limits. The thought hits her with all the force of an elbow to the gut, and it’s all she can do to keep her white knuckled grip from jerking her car off onto the side of the road in response.

She doesn’t _know_ what he wants from this. Certainly, Rey thinks as the surprisingly strong morning light pours into the cab of her car, she knows what _she_ needs out of the relationship (a white picket fence, the feeling of his lips against her pulse, a _home_ to return to each night). But now, in light of all the things left unsaid, she simply doesn’t know what the brooding man she’s so inexorably tied to wants. Unbidden, the memory of his bassist, exhausted and drunk atop Rose’s couch after First Order’s signing party springs to mind, admitting into the very pillow which Rey had sobbed her devotion to Ben into so long ago, that he was _leaving;_ packing up and moving to chase some contract he hadn’t even deemed her important enough to consult in regards to the matter.

It feels like she’s taken a bullet right to the chest, and the numbness Rey had felt in her fingers that night after the Cantina show takes honest to god root. Each time Ben attempts to talk to her, Rey feels like maybe her mouth has become a shallow grave, incapable of replying for the pounds of gravesoil threatening to slip down her throat. It’s suffocating, the inadequacy that sets up behind her manubrium, and before she knows it, Rey is pouring her focus into anything but Ben; the café, her social media, the rift slowly growing between Bala and his sweet summer breeze of a girlfriend (the last thing she wants is for another couple to fall to this same conflict).

By the time Rey’s parked in the cracked café parking lot, cigarette stained and entirely lacking substance, her car feels more like mausoleum than vehicle. The morning air fills her lungs like shattered safety glass as soon as she exits the cab, and for a second Rey considers turning right back around and driving home with all of her windows down and November breeze in her hair. But common sense wins out, and so it’s with a sour expression and ankles made of brick that she stomps into the high ceilinged little coffee house. Jess is, naturally, working till and the two women exchange a grim glance before Rey ducks back past the bathrooms to clock in and set her bag atop one of the many boxes of coffee filters that clutter the dingey back room.

According to her (regretfully reliable) sources, First Order is set to move in three weeks: on the twenty fourth of the month, and the thought sends a pang through Rey’s chest that overwhelms what anger had set up there like a late winter storm. Her shift passes in a blur of lattes, doppios, and men with bright eyes and smiles a little too sharp for her eyes. It’s almost like, Rey muses as she sits with her back to the still frosted transformer that lies between the café and it’s greasy spoon neighbor, her retinas have been burned in the shape of him. The breeze picks up, cold enough to raise goosebumps, and she takes a pensive drag of her cigarette before heaving a smoky sigh into the watery afternoon air.

Ten days before First Order leaves, Rey’s phone lights up with an event notification: _First Order farewell show!_ Jess, Poe, and of course, Ben have all clicked attending; and it’s with no small amount of spite that she hits _unable to go_. The farewell show’s venue is, naturally, the same warehouse she’d first seen them in (the same venue she’d fucked Ben in the bathroom of just before First Order’s set), a fact that prompts Rey to drive out to the wharf alone late Wednesday night, half burnt pack in hand and fire in her eyes.

Sitting there, alone in the smoky cab of her car save for the almost negligible chords of some song Ben had probably shown her and the hiss of snow against the too warm window, Rey realizes that she wants nothing more than to follow him across state lines.

In hindsight, played out like old setlists and the smell of a venue post show, Rey realizes it was mostly pride that kept her from reaching out. But in the moment, it feels like the most natural move to make. He’d _wronged_ her, omitted information and kept a huge, life altering detail from her all in the name of some ass backwards sense of duty. It stings like isopropyl in a papercut, and keeps Rey seething all the way up until the night of the farewell show (Friday, a mere seven days before they leave).

She’s at her favorite seat against the sticky bartop of Jabba’s when it happens, next to Rose and flirting with the poor bartender more for something to do than anything else. Cory (Rey remembers his name from a January night so long ago it feels like bone in her mouth) leans close, brushes his lips against her ear, and Rey’s halfway to humoring him when her phone pings. The notification is a snap from Jess, undoubtedly sent from the dirty warehouse venue she knows so well; Rey’s hands shake as she excuses herself from the bar and hurries to the white walled bathroom. In the way that most snaps sent from shows are, the framing is crooked, exposure shot in an attempt to level the hyper saturated stage lighting; but even as Rey leans back against the cheap plaster wall, it’s clear _exactly_ what it is.

Ben, sitting on the edge of the stage with the beloved twelve string Leia had bought him on his seventeenth birthday cradled against his chest as he sings into an obscenely lowered mic.

His voice breaks on what seems like every other note, painfully earnest as he works his way through chord progressions entirely too slow and too soft for First Order’s typical fair. The other boys stand motionless behind him, save for Poe: who occasionally leans into his mic to provide backup as Ben sings. Rey’s never been a sad drunk (isn’t really even all that drunk to begin with), but as Ben nearly whispers into the mic how she’d given him the world when she’d pulled him in, she finds herself weeping openly.

“You gave me purpose.” He rasps, brow knit, striking onstage as he looks up from the neck of his guitar to continue, and Rey is wrecked. The next line of the song is lost to her when a blonde with baby pink lips steps out of the nearest stall and stops dead in her tracks.

“Oh _sweetheart!”_ Rey feels selfish for only thinking of the last person who’d called her that.

 

“What’s wrong baby?” She doesn’t know how to explain to a drunk stranger that the man who was probably the love of her life was leaving in seven days and had also apparently written _and_ debuted a song for her, so instead Rey just shrugs one denim clad shoulder and offers a weak,

“Boys.” The blonde tosses her hair and gives a sympathetic sigh before pulling Rey into a hug that smells like designer perfume and tequila.

When she steps back up to the bar, feeling a million pounds heavier and a little lost for words, Rose hands her a drink (vodka soda, heavy on the lemon) and raises one eyebrow. Rey’s keenly aware of Cory’s eyes on her and the crush of people at their backs, and so instead of elaborating chooses to shake her head wanly.

“I’ll explain later.”

She never actually does.

The walk back from Jabba’s to her house is _cold_. The kind of cold that sends Rey’s hands deep into the thin pockets of her jacket, and Rose tucking her nose against her shoulder as they shuffle past streetlights. It’s 1:30 on a Friday (well, technically Saturday), and the streets reflect it, overflowing with boisterous drunks and tired looking designated drivers smoking outside of bars. They’d left after a text from Jess alerting them to the fact that the show was over and the boys were planning on heading straight to Jabba’s then the Cantina to celebrate. Rey can feel the coffin on her back more acutely than ever, and wishes for a second that they’d driven just so she can warm up, it’s not like she’d been in the mood to drink anyways.

Ben calls her again as they step past the doors to her apartment building, and Rey cannot help but pause to stare at his contact photo lighting up her screen, lovey name with emojis still intact as Rose calls the elevator down. She’s not sure what he has to say, can’t really conceive of a conclusion to whatever conversation they’d have that wouldn’t leave her in tears and smoking out her bedroom window, and instead chooses to let the call ring and follow her friend into the rickety elevator.

After Rose has washed her face and tumbled face first into her unmade bed, Rey ends up cracking her window and lighting up anyways.

She’s still mad, can feel the anger wedged somewhere between her first and second rib when she wakes up to a fresh layer of snow the next morning, but it’s dulled somehow; less of a dagger as Rey sits up to peer past her blinds. Rose is still asleep, mouth slightly parted and limbs askew on the side of the bed that used to be Ben’s, wholly undisturbed as Rey clambers off of the mattress to pad towards her shower. Rey knows how to handle anger, can wield it like a blade in times of desperate need; but standing in the shower she’d cried over Ben in just over a year ago, she feels like maybe she’s slipped and fallen on her own blade. She’s halfway through rinsing the shampoo from her hair when Jess announces her presence by stepping into the bathroom and handing Rey a cup of coffee through the curtain, manicured nails a stark red against the cheap enamel.

“You opened my snap.” A statement, thrown into misty air with all the delicacy of a grenade. Rey chooses to grab her bottle of conditioner instead of answering right away.

“He just wants to talk, Rey.” For a second, she starts to wonder when Jess had become the voice of reason in their group, but as she finishes working the product through her ends Rey realizes that’s likely always been the case.

“I just don’t know what he expects to come of it.” A quiet admission of truth, delivered to the translucent inner lining of her shower curtain with a thick throat.

“People do long distance all the time.”

“Yeah.” Rey rotates one barbell so the opals glint on either side of her nipple. “After prior discussion and full disclosure of plans.” _That_ seems to shut her friend up for a few glorious seconds, but any relief Rey might have felt is short lived as Jess shoves her head past the curtains a few seconds later.

“Alright asshat.”

Well aware of how long a tirade she’s in for, Rey deigns to sit down.

“You’re both miserable without one another.” She takes a sip of shower coffee with shaky hands while Jess makes herself comfortable against the dewey wall. “I am aware that Ben was _spectacularly_ shitty, and he is too.”  Rey rolls hazel eyes and considers shaving her legs for a few seconds. “He’s done nothing but wallow in his own fuck up for the last fourteen days, and fully understands exactly where he went wrong.”

The water starts to go cold, and Rey abandons the idea of shaving her legs in favor of rinsing the conditioner from her hair (cold water was better for hair, _right?_ ).

“I’m not saying you need to throw yourself back into his arms, and I’m _not_ saying that he is blameless in this.”

Over the falling water and Jess’s steadily rising voice, Rey thinks she hears Rose struggling out of bed.

“But I _am_ saying.” A sigh, as the last third of their trio takes a seat on the sink (Rey imagines her helping herself to another cup of coffee preemptively set out by Jess). “That you should at least hear him out. For closure’s sake, if nothing else.”

Rey stands and turns off the water with fingers made of lead, uncomfortably aware of how correct her friend is. Even now, heartbroken and forced into a horrifically rational corner by Jess’s whip like sense of reason, Rey thinks she can feel Ben beneath her skin. Tired and sore, she pulls the curtain back and feels her lips quirk into an almost smile when Rose hands her a towel.

“This goes for both of you, you know.” The brunette muses as Rose chokes on her coffee.

“I wasn’t expecting to be able to get two birds stoned at once, but you’re both in the same place so I’m not about to waste this opportunity.” Rey wraps the teal terrycloth around her torso and steps out of the shower with a gusty sigh. Through the thrown open door, she catches a glimpse of the city cast in stark relief by fresh snow and morning light, a blank canvas of mirrored glass and carefully calculated physics.

“Finn might not have written a song.” Jess begins as Rey ducks between Rose’s legs to retrieve her blow dryer from the cabinet beneath the sink. “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t also painfully repentant.”

It is, without a doubt, the most Monday like Saturday morning Rey’s ever experienced in her entire life.

 


	6. states away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **well:** here we are again, rock bottom. 
> 
> **maddy vc:** what the fuck have you done zoey?

Monday morning, two days after her impromptu shower counseling session with Jess, Rey sits down at the lonely wood grain of her coffee table and calls Ben. He picks up on the third ring voice rough with sleep (Rey can perfectly imagine him sitting up in bed, sheets pooled around his waist as he fumbles his phone).

“Rey?”

“Yeah.”

A heavy silence follows that gathers in the corners of Rey’s little dining room to swirl in the still air like afternoon dust motes. It feels a little too calm for Rey’s taste, she’d much rather have the maelstrom of emotions that had come with _last_ November than this false sense of calm. Ben’s breathing is ragged on the other end of the line, heavy as if he’d just run a mile or played a particularly good set (or fucked her in the back of his shitty little car). She doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t really want to make the first move, feels overwhelmingly that this is his hole to dig himself out of anyways. Ben inhales slowly, lets it out in a sigh, and then finally ( _finally_ ) speaks.

“I should have told you.”

No shit.

“I wasn’t sure we were going to accept the offer, I didn’t want you to have to worry if it wasn’t actually going to happen. I thought at the time I was making the right choice but I was really just being a fucking idiot.”

If Rey had thought she didn’t know what to say before, she _really_ didn’t know what to say now.

“Well-“ she begins, no real statement in mind but an overwhelming need to fill the silence pushing her forward.

“And I’m sorry. And I love you.”

“And you leave in four days.”

Ben falls silent, not even breathing as Rey white knuckles the edge of her table.

“I don’t know what to do, Ben.” She’s glad they’re doing this over the phone as her eyes start to well up, tears spilling over and onto her cheeks with the next sentence. “I don’t know how to move forward from this.” But she _wants_ to, desperately so.

“I don’t either.” He sounds even more broken than he had that misty October night in Rose’s living room, and it feels like a bullet to the chest. “But I want to.”

Rey wipes at her cheeks absently and balefully glares at the wall opposite her as silence stretches out in the cool air between them.

“Come over.” Ben all but begs, voice thready on the other side of the line. “Let’s figure it out in person.”

November in the city is all fresh snow and the sharp smell of cold concrete. Rey opts to walk over to Ben’s, partly in a desperate bid for time to think, and partly in order to suck down two red and contemplate a third as she rounds the corner onto his street. The object of her angst is leaning against the brickwork of his building, cheeks hollowed and hair wild around his face as he stubs out his cigarette and closes the distance between them (the crunch of snow beneath his skate shoes nearly deafening in the early morning quiet). Numb fingers reach up for his face, and in the next second they’re kissing, pedestrians and past offenses all forgotten in light of their lips moving together.

“I heard your song.” Rey whispers when they finally part, uncaring that her nose has started to run, and entirely cowed by the tears brimming in Ben’s sable eyes.  “It was beautiful.” The man she’s beginning to worry might be the love of her life gives a watery laugh and presses his mouth to her temple before answering.

“I’ll have to play it for you in person some time.”

His apartment looks exactly the same as she’d remembered it, save for the fact that the usual armada of pedals, amps, and guitars were all neatly packed up in boxes beside the door. The image sends a pang through Rey’s chest, a painful reminder of just how long she had before Ben was loading up into First Order’s shitty little van and heading to the airport. She thinks he might sense this, as in the next second his hands are on her hips, and Rey can’t see anything past the heat of his stare.

“I love you.” Ben emphatically states, fingers tightening in punctuation. “I’m so sorry I let my own head get in the way.” Rey tries to smile, but falls short as her lips tremble, and for the first time since Bala had broken the news she really, truly cries. Profanities spewing from his lips, Ben pulls her into his chest and sinks to the floor, shoulders propped against an amp as he tugs her into his lap.

“Oh sweetheart.” Little more than a whisper into her hair. “Oh baby, I’m so sorry.” Rey nods, digs her fingers into the soft fabric of his shirt, and cries even harder.

Ben presses a kiss into her hair, then her temple, before settling over her cheek as one thumb darts up to brush the freshest tears away. His touch is staggeringly tender, and Rey can see unfailing honesty scrawled across his lips and the knit of his brow when she finally musters the courage to look up. There’s no time for her to register little more than that though, as Ben’s lips slant over hers again, and suddenly Rey’s all too aware of the fact that she’s curled into his lap with one calloused hand resting on her thigh.

“I love you too.” She murmurs against his mouth, fingers stiff as they unclench from Ben’s shirt to run up and down his sides. “ _So_ much.” And then they are kissing again.

By the time Ben stands up, her legs around his waist and the cumbersome fabric of her winter coat carelessly thrown to the ground, Rey’s got both her hands beneath his shirt and a steadily growing fire in her stomach that feels a little like hope and a lot like desire. Ben’s room looks more like a tomb than a home, bare walled and filled with the watery kind of sunlight so typical of late fall in the city. His bed is unmade, sheets thrown hastily off presumably when she’d called him, and Rey can’t help but think back to that sticky hot summer night when he’d first spread her out over these same sheets.

“Let me take off your coat.” He begs once he’s got her down onto the mattress, kneeling between her legs and looking halfway between prayer and penance. Rey nods, eyes wide as she studies the play of light across his face and hopes she never forgets this. Her coat hits the ground and then Ben’s lips are on hers again, hands gentle as they help her to lay down without breaking the kiss.

They lay together in the aftermath, sweaty and tangled in the cheap sheets as the city comes alive around them. Ben has his nose pressed into the space between her neck and shoulder, shoulders rising and falling softly with each unsteady breath. He’s beautiful, Rey thinks sadly, fingers carding through the damp hair at the nape of his neck while her heartrate slows. She can acutely feel his lips against her throat where they press apologies into her skin like rain, and the ache in her hips from where he’d so perfectly fit just a few moments prior.

She’s going to miss this.

Somewhere, in the back of her mind Rey knows that distance is useless, that this will ultimately be nothing more than a small hurdle in their relationship. But right now, with her heart in her throat and Ben’s cum still drying against her legs, the idea of Ben states away feels like a nearly insurmountable obstacle.

He makes her coffee with the French press she’d bought him three months into their relationship and together they sit on the mussed sheets of his bed, knees brushing. Ben’s cheeks already look a little less hollow, eyes brighter in nearly afternoon light than she’d seen them since October. Rey watches him watch her intently, blinking past the steam that rises past the rim of her mug with each sip.

“I’ll call you every day.” Ben promises with all the weight of a courtroom vow, hands tight around his mug. “I’ve already promised mom I’ll come home for major holidays.” She feels her throat going tight as he sets his coffee down on the floor and scoots closer to her, sheets bunching up around him as he goes.

“Plane tickets aren’t so bad, we can go halfsies on them whenever our schedules allow.” The first few tears begin to prick at her eyes, and it’s with a damningly tender expression that Ben gently pulls the mug from her grip to set it beside her own.

“I’ll fly back every chance I get.” He promises, and Rey knows he means it.  “I’ll fly you down to me whenever I can.” Ben sounds close to tears now too, but his hands are steady when they curl around her ribs and lift until she’s staunchly in his lap.

“We’ll make it work.” A promise into her hair. “We’re gonna be okay.” Rey doesn’t bother to fight the tears that slide down her cheeks to drop onto his bare shoulder.

“I’m not leaving you Rey.”

She’s never actually believed anyone when they’ve said that before; and the realization that she can feel the truth of Ben’s statement in the spaces between her ribs sends another wave of tears to her eyes.  

Jess is waiting on the counter of her kitchen when Rey steps back through the door later that afternoon, stealing back for a pair of pajamas and underwear that doesn’t smell like sex. The two women stare at one another, silence warm between them like another old friend. Finally, Jess smiles, eyes on the hicky that blooms just beneath Rey’s ear and the pair burst into teary laughter.

“So you let him speak his piece?” Jess asks as she lazes on Rey’s bed, watching her friend pack a small overnight bag. She’s got a cigarette lazily lit out the window and an undeniably smug smile on her face that would send Rey’s eyes rolling if she wasn’t so grateful for the brunette’s intervention. Rey selects a barely there pair of red underwear and drops them into her bag with finality.

“Yeah, I did.” Her friend turns quarter to take a drag, and it’s not until she’s exhaled the last bit of smoke from her lungs that she fully faces Rey again.

“And you’re back together?” Rey can only nod, lips twitching into a private kind of smile as Jess ashes her cig in approval. “Good. I’m glad. You two idiots are perfect for each other.”

The four days between their reconciliation and First Order’s flight out of town pass in a blur of reverent kisses and smiles that burn Rey’s retinas like she’d stared into a stage light for too long. She wakes up every morning beside Ben, sore and happy with his arm over her waist. It’s almost enough to make her forget that he’s about to leave, almost enough to draw her mind away from the ancient old anxiety that threatens to claw its way up past her diaphragm at any second (but not quite, and as Friday draws nearer and nearer, Rey reminds the beast daily that Ben wasn’t _leaving_ her, that this wasn’t going to be permanent, one way or another).

First Order loads all of their gear into the shitty little band van on a sharp enough to cut November morning, and even though she’s standing with Ben’s coat around her shoulders the sight still makes Rey’s stomach drop. They’re staging out of Poe and Finn’s house, and it’s with a jolt that Rey wonders if she’ll ever enter the seedy little two story that had become such a fixture in her life ever again. Jess stands beside her as Ben helps lift the heaviest of their amps into the back, and together the two of them wish that Rose was standing beside them as well.

Finn looks like he’s going to throw up when Poe slams the back of the van closed, grin firmly in place as Bala cheers. It’s a triumphant moment, even with all that they’re leaving behind, it’s _good_ , and though her throat is undeniably tight, Rey’s smile is honest when Ben catches her eye. Finn and Bala pile into the van along with their gear, while Jess drives Poe, and Ben ducks into the cab of Rey’s car with his backpack and a tired smile.

“I love you.” He reminds her, leaning over the center console to capture her lips in a kiss. Rey brings one hand up to cup his cheek, and when Ben pulls away it’s with damp eyes and a crooked smile.

“I also got you something.” Rey raises both eyebrows as her boyfriend reaches down into the top pocket of his backpack to fish out a small box.

“It, uh, was my Mom’s.” Ben’s ears are pink as he opens the seemingly innocuous box, “she wanted me to give it to you.” Even if she had wanted to, Rey would have been powerless to stop the gasp that tore from her throat at the sight of the tiny little opal that glinted up at her from the satin lining.

“Dad gave her this necklace when they started dating.” His words are rushed, and Rey can hear Han in every hitch of his breath. “A promise to always come back.”

Well aware of the tears on her cheeks, and the fact that every other member of their party has long since pulled out of the snowy driveway, Rey blinks up at the ceiling and tugs her hair out of the way as Ben leans forward to clasp the thin silver chain around her neck. This time it’s her who kisses him, throat thick and arms tight around his neck.

She sits in her car after he’s safely through security; the image of Ben, band at his back and tears in his eyes as he waves at her haunting. The opal sits just beneath her collarbones, warm to the touch when Rey ghosts her fingers over it, _a promise to always come back._ She cries the whole way home.

Three days (filled with texts and snaps and calls) after First Order boards their plane, Rey wakes up to a text from a number she doesn’t recognize:

_Good morning sweetheart! Dinner at the house tonight?_

Followed immediately by a series of texts from Ben:

_Mom asked for your number, I hope you don’t mind that I gave it to her_

_Love you!_

_We’re going to the studio for the first time today, I’ll send snaps_

Fingers darting up to the chain at her throat, Rey manages a smile and wonders at the first text. Ben may be thousands of miles away, but maybe that didn’t mean that the little family she’d carved out for herself had to shrink.

 


	7. old soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **working title:** this is too soft who tf am i ?  
>  **uh, well:** thank you all so much for your patience with this update, life has been weird and transitional lately (as it usually is, this time of year). i'm very lucky to have a community like you around me while i figure this shit out.

Leia Organa-Solo pours a stiff glass of wine; a fact that Rey becomes intimately acquainted with as she sits opposite the petite woman, dinner long packed away and the clock to her right nearing midnight. She’s a canny woman, this aging battle axe across from her, and the thought brings a smile to Rey’s lips even as she takes a silent sip from her glass. Han had gone to bed about a half hour ago, departing the warm washed room with a tender kiss against Leia’s temple and an earnest hand atop Rey’s shoulder. Maybe it’s the wine, or the absence of Ben that sits so heavily in her stomach, but Rey feels a staggering amount of fondness for the two adults who’d so eagerly welcomed her into their home.

“Breath of fresh air?” Leia offers with a smile and a sip of her Pino Noir, slim in hand as she rises from the table with a kind of intrinsic grace that pulls Rey’s lips into a soft smile. They bundle up in almost silence, and Rey sees Ben in the way Leia watches the snow falling outside while she digs for her pack of reds.

There’s something magical about still air and falling snow, a special kind of hush that Rey doesn’t think she’s ever seen anything quite like. It blankets the little lawn that spreads out behind the old brick house and sends the paper birches refracting what light makes it through the frosted windows to guide her way as Rey hands the lucky lighter to Leia. This, Rey knows as Ben’s mother passes her lighter back and takes a slow drag, is a moment she’s probably going to remember forever. Together they stand on the porch and watch the snow float down, perfect little flakes that catch on eyelashes and dust patterns across the dark fabric of Rey’s winter coat before succumbing to excess body heat.

“We’d love to have you for dinner next Wednesday too.” Leia smiles into the chill air, glass in one hand and cig in the other, looking far more regal than anyone had the right to so late in the evening. Rey feels her breath catch in the back of her throat, tangled up in cigarette smoke and the sudden lump that had made its presence known.

“I’d really like that.” The smile they share is a warm one, heavy with the promise of many more nights like this that sticks to Rey’s fingers like the smell of tobacco as she drives home later that night, eyes fixed the moon where it kisses the tops of trees.

The weeks between Ben’s departure and Christmas pass in a blur of dinners with Leia and cold mornings at the café. Rose becomes a staple in the sunny shop again, red scarf piled up past her upper lip as she shakes the snow from her hair each time she steps through the door. Her gait is uncharacteristically heavy, and Rey intimately recognizes the coffin her friend seems to be carrying on her back. She knows from Ben that Finn isn’t doing all that much better, the state of their friend’s relationship (or lack thereof) a frequent topic of conversation when they call late into the night.   

“He needs to reach out to her.” Ben rasps one such evening, voice sending a thrill through Rey’s stomach as she presses her cheek against the soft weave of the pillow that used to be his (it doesn’t smell like him anymore, and Rey would be lying if she said she wasn’t counting down the days until he was back with his hair splaying out across her pillows).

“I mean yeah.” There’s a rustle as Ben shifts in his bed, and then silence as Rey figures out how best to finish her sentence. “But reaching out won’t do any good if Rose isn’t ready to listen.” She and Jess had discussed this at length, brows knit under flickering fluorescent lights as they closed the café each Monday and Tuesday.

“I know.” A sigh, the sound of him idly flicking his lighter, and then: “I miss you.”

She doesn’t think she’s ever heard anything sweeter.

“I miss you too.” Someone gives a whoop on the street below, and Rey shifts her gaze to study the splash of light that colors her window, shoulders rising in a heavy sigh. “Only two more weeks till you’re back though.” Fourteen days, filled with shifts and shows and entirely too much time to kill before she could wrap her arms around his waist again. She can perfectly imagine Ben’s grin as he inhales deeply on the other end of the line, and as cliché as it sounds, her heart skips a beat when he answers.

“I can’t wait. I love you.”

There might not be any smell Rey loves as much as fresh snow and brewing coffee. It hits her nose the second she steps out of her car into the crisp, early December air and brings a smile to her face as she makes her way across the snowy parking lot. There are two days left until Ben flies home, only two days between her and the smell of his skin hanging in her nose. The weather reflects that much, almost blindingly sunny and still, all glittering snow and an inescapable sense of hope that twinkles at her from the strings of lights that hang in the trees outside the café. Today she’ll work her midshift, grab a beer with Jess and Rose, and then go home to her warm bed and the promise of a tomorrow spent cleaning her loft head to toe in preparation for Ben’s arrival. Her phone pings, a text from Leia confirming that she’s picking up said man from the airport and inviting the both of them to dinner the night after he gets home. Even as she pulls her fingers from the cloistered warmth of her pockets to answer, Rey doesn’t feel the cold.

When Rose shuffles into the café around two, both Rey and Jess snap to attention. Her eyes are dull, and the hair that hangs around her face is limp (a far cry from how immaculately styled it usually was). A quick glance at the clock reveals that Rey is closer to taking her break than Jess, and so it’s with an unnerving sense that she’s heading into battle that the brunette unties her apron and meets her friend at the condiment bar.

“Take my break with me?” Rose only nods, and loops an arm through Rey’s.

The alley that lays between the café and its neighboring diner is strewn with cigarette butts (reds from Rey, pal malls left behind by Jess) and fallen leaves only half covered by the most recent snow. Rose leans against the frosted transformer and holds out one gloved hand, a gesture so out of place that Rey has to tamp down her expression as she hands the other woman a cig. The lucky lighter is suspiciously light in her hand when Rey passes it over to Rose, filter already between her lips as she watches her friend clumsily spark up (she can’t remember the last time Rose had smoked).

“Finn called me this morning.” Rey nods, accepts the lighter when Rose hands it over, and takes a long drag from her cig before replying.

“Oh-” But Rose cuts her off before Rey can get any further, gloved fingers shaking in the crisp afternoon light.

“He’s coming home tomorrow.” News to Rey, and enough of a shock to send dark eyebrows rocketing up towards her hairline. “He wants to talk as soon as possible.”

Well.

Instead of answering right away, Rey chooses instead to scuff her foot against the loosely packed snow, carving a little trench just big enough to dip the toe of her boot into as she takes a slow drag. Rose seems content to wait, ashing her cig with a forlorn look up to the cloudless sky while the seconds in Rey’s fifteen minute break tick away.

“Do you want to talk to him?” A question made of brick that falls against the snow and cigarette butts to shatter still air.

“Yeah.” The breeze picks up, ghosting across their cheeks and sending Rey’s shoulders up towards her ears. “I just…” Another drag, their hands coming down in sync as a horn blares from some car around the corner. “I don’t know what to say, or what he even expects to come from it.”

Ben’s stare, watery and earnest as he’d pulled her into his arms outside the apartment building burns against the back of Rey’s eyes, and it’s with a rattling inhale that she replies.

“Well. What do _you_ want to come from it?” Rose only shrugs one shoulder, tears in her eyes as she takes another steeling drag, looking incredibly small against the transformer behind them.

“I want.” Rey’s phone pings (undoubtedly a text from Ben) only to be ignored as her friend rests her head against the cold metal at their back. “I want to understand why he didn’t tell me they were moving.” One of their coworkers, a soft eyed man with tattoos that wound down his forearms named Chris pokes his head out the door and gestures for Rey to take an additional ten minutes before heading back in.

“I want to know what _he_ wants out of this.” The hand not clutching her cig comes up to wipe a tear from her chin, and Rey shifts closer to rest her cheek on Rose’s head as they both take another rattling drag.

“I can’t keep doing this.” A painfully quiet admission that hangs in the air like ice fog, wreathing around their faces to cling to eyelashes and tree branches. Rose sniffs again, and Rey doesn’t have to look down to know her friend is crying in earnest now, cigarette all but forgotten in hand as her emotions finally break free.

“Rey, I think I love him.” There aren’t enough minutes in any break to properly work through that statement, and so Rey only presses a kiss against the crown of Rose’s head in response.

“I know baby.” And she does, painfully so; had been in the exact same position just a few brief weeks ago, lost and cold in mid November. Rey knows this feeling so well, can intimately remember the way it had felt like her chest was caving in, the weight of a glacier inexorably pressed against her sternum and making its presence known with each breath she struggled to take.

“Stay here until Jess and I are off.” The café wasn’t warm enough to help with that kind of cold (nothing was), but it was better than lonely streets or the hallowed air of a home too strongly loved in. “We’ll go get a beer outside the firepits and figure this out, okay?” Rose stubs out her cigarette with a nod while Rey finishes hers, eyes tight at the corners as she begins to work the problem spread out in front of her.

The firepits in question were a new fixture to the brewery Ben had worked at before moving, tucked away behind the building and frequented by patrons who wanted to smoke or talk in private (or both, in their case). Night came early this time of year, sun dipping beneath the skyline long before Rey and Jess had clocked off, leaving the little patio lit only by dancing flames and the fairy lights strung up above them. Jess is halfway through her first beer, pal mall in hand before she speaks, words carefully selected as ever.

“So you love him.” Rey rolls her eyes and takes a sip of her beer, quietly observing as Rose splutters and glares.

“I said I _think_ I love him, Jess.” The other woman waves her cigarette disinterestedly and glances over at Rey. “Semantics, Tico.” Rey sighs into her drink and sets it down on the bench beside the fire where Rose sits before speaking.

“Given that his argument is strong enough, are you willing to forgive him?” A loaded question, and maybe one that would have been best delivered with a little more tact Rey reflects as she lights up. Rose stares into the flames, fingers worrying the edge of her ripped jeans as she thinks.

“Well…” But before she can get any farther Jess sets her (now empty) glass down to interrupt.

“Better way to look at it: regardless of his argument, are you willing to try and work through this at all?” The subject of their interrogation tips her head back to stare balefully at the stars that wink indifferently down at them, and not for the first time Rey is struck with just how lovely her friend is. A brief silence reigns while Rose thinks, Rey smokes, and Jess gathers their empty glasses to get another round. The busser who’d been promoted to server following Ben’s resignation steps out into the cold, gives Rey a soft smile (he’d be cute if it weren’t for the dermal that glittered beneath his right eye) and tucks himself into the corner opposite them as Jess storms back out onto the patio. Rose accepts the fresh beer gratefully, and peers over its rim at the two women opposite her for a few seconds before answering.

“I think I am, yeah.” A smile, wholly unsurprised by the answer, but still grateful to hear it spoken aloud. “I’m upset, it will take some time for me to fully move on from it, but I don’t think this is worth losing the relationship over.” There’s a rustle of fabric as dermal boy (Josh? Rey thinks his name was Josh) recognizes the gravity of the conversation playing out in front of him and politely removes himself from the situation. Jess waits until the frosted glass door has swung shut behind him, content to sip on her IPA as silence settles over the patio once again.

“Good. I think that’s an apt assessment.” Rey can’t help but snort at her friend’s clinical language and crosses the snowy asphalt to sit beside Rose.

“We love you so much.” Jess nods, Rose smiles, and Rey watches the weight on her shoulders lift a little. “Just let us know what you need, okay?” They spend the rest of the night drinking and laughing, noses cold but hearts warm as Chris and the rest of the closing shift join them around ten. Ben comes home the day after tomorrow, Rose and Finn were going to be alright, and Rey’s never been one for mysticism, but she can’t help but thinking that maybe this was how things were supposed to be.

Rose picks Finn up from the airport at noon the next day; Jess and Rey waiting with phones in hand as they putter around her loft, cleaning more for a distraction than anything as they wait for updates. Her kitchen is spotless, and they’re halfway through with the living room before their phones ping in unison, the name of their group chat bright on Jess’s cracked screen.

_We’re talking, it’s going to be okay, he’s staying at my place tonight._

_Dinner tomorrow?_

The watery December sun seems to brighten a little at that, and Jess sets her phone down with finality as Rey types out a response, cheek resting on the handle of her broom.

_Take care of yourself, dinner sounds great._

And it does, a dinner with all of the people she loves in one place sounds incredible. It’s been a hard winter so far, nothing like the one before it, but difficult nonetheless. They had all earned a night to sit together, distance overcome and the coffin weight they’d all drug behind them shed even if just for a few hours. Jess takes her leave around eight, cigarette tucked behind one ear and smile on her face as she stands in the dim lighting of the hallway outside Rey’s loft.

“Make sure to actually get some sleep tonight.” There’s no mistaking the glint in her eyes, and Rey feels herself flushing even before the next words are out of her friend’s mouth. “You’re certainly not going to get any tomorrow.”

Rey drives to the airport under bright December sun, heat cranked and heart racing as the miles between her and Ben dwindle away. His flight is running late, hit hard with headwinds, and Rey’s almost grateful, head tilted back to stare at the smoke-stained ceiling of her car as she burns one down in the poorly lit parking garage. The gearshift rattles beneath her hand as a 747 takes off, engines howling overhead, and Rey doesn’t even pause to consider being nervous as she stubs out the red and flicks her lighter once for luck.

She can still taste the cigarette on her teeth as she steps out of the cold and into the terminal, bathed in the sun that filters in through snowy skylights. It keeps her grounded, helps with some of the frenetic energy that whirls in her chest as the security gate and the steady flow of people stepping through it comes into view. Rey sets up across from it, shoulder blades pressed against one of the many granite columns that tower above passengers to support the ceiling, left hand drifting up to fondly press against the necklace he’d given her so many weeks ago while she waits. 

In the end it’s her who spots Ben first, towering over the rest of his flight as they make their way up from the C gates, hair half pulled up and eyes bright. He catches her eye after only a few seconds of observation and then they’re both moving, passerby and distance all forgotten in face of the blood that pounds in their ears. Ben sweeps her into his arms the second he’s over the TSA line, breath hot against her neck as he spins her around before curling one hand around the back of her neck to slant an enthusiastic kiss over her mouth.

“Hey baby.” He murmurs against her lips when they pull apart, eyes suspiciously damp as Rey brings her hands up to cradle his face.

“Welcome home.”

The walk back to her car is torture, every square millimeter of Ben’s palm against her own burning as they pass under the same snowy skylights and into the flickering fluorescent cold of the parking garage. Her car comes into view as Ben releases her hand to slide his palm under her jacket to rub small circles into the small of her back, and Rey wonders if maybe _this_ is how she goes: unreasonably aroused for being in a parking garage at ten am on a Thursday. They pull up to her car a few seconds later, and Rey’s barely got her keys in hand before Ben presses her back against the door to lave kisses across her throat.

“I missed you _so_ much.” Rey can’t help the watery laugh that spills from her lips as he pauses to dust a kiss beneath her ear. “I’m _so glad_ to be home.” Chapped lips find the hollow between her collarbones, and this time when Ben speaks his voice is thick. “Mom’s opal looks perfect on you.” Something in Rey roars to life at that, and the stare she levels at Ben under the shitty lighting is heavy with white dresses and family heirlooms.

“Let’s go home.” Rey all but begs, heart in her throat (Ben’s more than eager to comply).

She speeds all the way there.

They almost don’t make it out of her bed in time to get to dinner, too tangled in the sheets to check her phone. But in the end between laughter that echoes like a hymnal and kisses so soft they almost burn, Rey and Ben manage to make it into her car, sweaty and happy in the late December cool (she thinks as Ben kisses her under the dome light that _this_ is what she wants for the rest of her life).

 


End file.
